Suspected Ebola Victim Dies In Lagos

A suspected Ebola patient yesterday died at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba.

The suspected patient was taken to LUTH by the Port Health authorities from the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja on Monday.

According to a source, who was on duty when the patient was admitted into the institution’s Accident & Emergency Unit (A&E), the patient showed high-level suspicion for Ebola, but died in the early hours of yesterday at the Spill-over ward of the hospital.

The source told Vanguard that the patient, a male, was rushed to the A&E, with high fever, vomiting and stooling which are confirmed Ebola-like symptoms.

It was further gathered that the medical team which attended to the patient, unfortunately, were not kitted with the recommended Personal Protective Equipment, PPE.

“We quickly took his temperature, it was very high. We were all scared to take his blood samples because we were not wearing any Personal Protective Equipment. We had to take him out of the emergency ward to the other spill-over ward to avoid any form of contamination. We also reported to the Lagos State Government so that they can take him to the Infectious Diseases Hospital, IDH, in Yaba for proper treatment. But he had started vomiting blood by this morning, (yesterday) and few hours after, he died,” the source told Vanguard.

Continuing, the source explained: “As I said, we could not take any blood sample when he was alive because we were not wearing PPE, and we could not manage him effectively because of the severity of the symptoms we saw and considering the fact that he was coming from the airport. He could have been coming from an Ebola-affected country.

“They will need to establish the cause of death, so as to be able to know whether to quarantine those that he had contact with from the airport to the hospital. LUTH does not have the facilities to handle any suspected case of Ebola; government should know that, so they don’t keep bringing suspected cases here. All suspected cases should be taken to IDH,” the source advised.